


not exactly rocket science!!!

by pressforward



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/F, Fluff, dorky lab smooches, spaceshipping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-12
Updated: 2014-04-12
Packaged: 2018-01-19 01:47:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1450810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pressforward/pseuds/pressforward
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Whatever, though! You have work to do, you’re not going to let a silly little lab crush get out of hand. First things first: research."</p>
            </blockquote>





	not exactly rocket science!!!

It is September 2nd, a day into the semester, and your labmate is definitely too gorgeous for your own good. She’s a 5’4” clean scalpel of a lady, sleek polished edges and stainless precision, and the way she says her name (“Kanaya Maryam”) and shakes your hand (confident and dry) makes you think this is going to be a very difficult couple of months.

Nothing to worry about, though! You’re Jade Harley, wunderkind and science whiz, this is what you breathe! She endears herself to you forever by laughing when you flash a smile and say, “Literally!” You don’t even have to explain.

Settling into lab, though, you worry that laugh is going to be a one-time thing. She seems so serious! The very first thing she does is arrange the beakers from largest to smallest, open the drawers and shake her head at the contents, then pull out a stack of Post-its and arrange them by color. Hoo boy.

The day she mutters something savagely under her breath about a ‘meddling slop-brained fiddlewizard’ is the day you realize how hard it is to keep from laughing around her. You learn to cough politely into your hand and keep your back turned. It becomes a game: how quickly can you stifle your laughter before she looks up and over at you. At first, you try to alternate lab hours, but it was just too much to keep track of, you need a lot more time than you thought, and honestly, Kanaya’s _really funny._ Maybe it would be creepy if you told her you can hear her muttering, so you don’t.

You try to keep out of each other’s way when you’re working. The lab’s small, though. Sometimes, you bump into each other. Sometimes you go to move trays and pick up instruments at the same time, and that’s how you remember how warm her hands are.

You come to unspoken agreements: the space in the upper left of the office refrigerator is hers, but cleaning the coffee pot is a shared responsibility. Passive-aggressive ignoring dishes in lab is totally okay, because it’s that other kid who leaves them there all the time, god, neither of you are here to clean up his mess. Negotiating creamer replacement is a more delicate procedure, especially since it turns out neither of you have been guzzling the creamer on the sly. After much investigation, you both decide it must either be the professor or that other kid. You’re convinced it’s the professor! She’s walked off with enough of your pens; you’re more than ready to add thoughtless filching of creamer to the list of her crimes! God, but if she does not stop inadvertently stealing the pens you like so much, _you will tear a hole in the universe and step through to a less shitty version with working ideas of personal property and decent writing implements, so help everyone but you._ Kanaya just props her chin on one fist when you launch into this tirade, and waits until you’re done strangling the air to say, “Feel better?”

Then she pulls a pack of pens out of her purse and offers you some. They’re not the kind you like, but they write _really well,_ and you’re kind of in love.

Whatever, though! You have work to do, you’re not going to let a silly little lab crush get out of hand. First things first: research. You make sure to leave her a handful of candy when you restock your drawer stash, though, craftily tucked under a note that says ‘thanks for the pens!!! :D’

“You know the professor will give us another _talk_ if she finds out. And you’re going to ruin your teeth,” is what she tells you when she finds them on her desk. You shrug, stick your multi-colored tongue out at her, then gasp in mock-horror as she unwraps one and pops it in her mouth.

“But Kanaya! Protocol! _Cavities!_ ”

She shrugs back, flashes a cut of a smile that’s a small part bashful and a huge part mischief. “They really are quite good.”

Next week, she leaves a bag of apples on the office table and asks if you’d like some, and how does anyone say ‘no’ to a nice crisp Cortland? So you take one for your snack break, and try to politely refrain from taking too many more, but she insists.

“My mother has an orchard, we really don’t know what to do with them all.”

“Really? That sounds great! Me and Grandpa have a vegetable garden back home, but we’ve never done apples. How long have your trees been producing fruit?”

You walk back to the lab talking about mulch and bemoaning pests, and when she describes the squirrels in her backyard, you laugh. You haven’t had a squirrel problem since Bec started sleeping outside, gosh, you miss him a lot sometimes. She squeezes your shoulder, and tells you about her ant colony, and how once, _they got loose. THROUGH THE ENTIRE HOUSE._ You laugh until your belly hurts.

When she says hello to the professor coming in, you realize she hasn’t taken her hand off your shoulder. She smiles at you, then walks back to her work. You are just about ready to swoon, but oh, can that thought, your second trial is just about done. Before you dash off, you sneak a glance over to where Kanaya is industriously measuring away, and gosh her hands are so fucking pretty, even in the shitty one-size-fits-all gloves. You hope maybe she is the kind of person who will touch your cheek when talking. You swear to god your heart just about stops when she does, in the break-room two weeks later.

Then it gets to mid-semester. You both need results, no conclusions yet, just some hard data to defend, and you need them soon. You skip an afternoon lecture to get another few hours in lab, and don’t blearily slouch your way home until past midnight. Kanaya comes into lab after you, and leaves an hour before; she’s there again when you come back early in the morning. _Very_ early. You ask her snidely if she keeps a blanket and a fold-up cot in one of those drawers, then roll your eyes when she dodges the question. The next day you bring her a blanket. The day after that, you notice it rumpled over the back of a chair. That poor girl. You take your coffee duties more seriously.

When she wakes up after an all-nighter and notices she’s drooled all over her notes, the way she covers her mouth and tries to blot away the puddle is about the cutest thing. She glances up and stares over at you from across the lab, and you guess you’ve laughed and given the game away. Whoops! You grin and hold up your own notebook’s crumpled pages by way of apology. At least she didn’t spill an entire thermos of coffee on hers. She rolls her eyes at you, and says, “ _Very_ reassuring,” but she doesn’t look as embarrassed when she wipes off her mouth.

You sneak her a cup of coffee the way she likes it, half that flavored creamer stuff, and one packet of sugar. When she says, “Thank you,” you tell her, “No problem!” and really mean it; you’d do everything to see her smile like that, no thanks necessary!

So when she says, “Jade? Could you help me with this?” you head over and take a look at her screen. Whooo, that’s going to be a doozy. You hook over the nearest chair, plonk down and scoot closer, wow, does she ever use tiny font. You resettle your glasses and lean in, squint.

She smells nice. Which isn’t a surprise, because she always smells nice. It’s just a little different when her hair’s sticking up in unintentional ways and her make-up’s sort of a mess and she’s chewing on her lower lip. She needs to take it easy every once in a while. It’d be nice if she could smell nice relaxing under a warm blanket with a cup of tea, scrunching her toes in fluffy socks and maybe falling asleep in front of the TV.

Well, you’re in it deep, Jade. You’re just going to have to make your move already, _geez!!_

“Looks fine to me,” you say, truthfully, because it really is. Based on your observations, Kanaya Maryam is not someone to do something halfway!

“But oh, are you sure this is right?” You point to a table directly in front of you. When she looks, fiercely intent, you take a deep breath and kiss her on the cheek.

She freezes. Veeery sloooooowly, she swivels around to face you, and you have your hands clamped to the sides of your chair, and your face is burning. She is really pretty, though! And funny, and smart, and patient with the samples when all you really want to do is just throw them out the window and call it a day, and _really good_ at giving neckrubs at 3 AM, and if she is going to be silly enough to ask what all that was about, that’s what you’re going to tell her.

Her eyes flick to the data, down to the floor, then back to you. Shit shit shit. Then she clears her throat. “Miss Harley, how unprofessional of you.”

Oh, okay. You get it. Your heart starts a slow-motion plummet down past your stomach.

Then she tips her head to the side and points to her other cheek. “I believe you missed a spot.”

You laugh. You can’t help it, there’s just a bright giddy peal of relief ringing all through you, and you get enough of a hold on it to lean forward and peck her again.

She turns partway through and you get lip instead, are woefully unprepared, but you give it your best. You pull back a little, and she says, “Oops,” totally unrepentant, and this is the best day ever. You kiss her again, lick just at the outer edge of her lip, then jump when she slips you her tongue.

She’s backed up in an instant, saying, “Sorry, I’m sorry.”

You pull her back towards you and feel your whole face heat up as you say, “Can you do it again?” That sure is a lot of bloodflow, uh, everywhere; your pulse is beating out a frantic one-two-twenty per second, and your ears feel like they’re about to ignite. You close your eyes, and she has one hand resting so gently against your jawline, and she does it again. Oh wow, tongues are weird. Tongues are really weird.

You slowly pull away, kiss her on the lips again, on her chin and the corner of her mouth. Kissing, however, is pretty great. You wonder if she’s come to the same conclusion. If she has, you should totally co-author a paper, haha yeah, that would be great.

Distantly, you hear yourself gabble out, “Oh, by the way, that chart was totally fine, I’m sorry; it’s my friend, you know, he makes me watch all these goofy romance movies-” oh geez, Jade, get it together!

But she’s laughing, gently brushes your cheek with her fingertips before settling her hands on your shoulder.

“Jade, it’s fine, I understand.” Her hands tighten, and she leans in until she’s forehead-to-forehead with you. “But for future reference, I really must insist on leaving the quality of my lab reports out of it. There are much easier ways to get my attention.”

You smile, and try not to squirm. Instead you put your hands on her hips and take a deep breath. “Okay, well. How about this?” You clear your throat and will yourself to be suave, _be suave._

Everything comes tumbling out of you in a rush.

“Kanaya, I really like you can we spend some time doing stuff outside the lab? You know like, for dinner or something? As a couple? Will you please go out with me? Wanna get coffee or something?”

She practically glows. “Yes.”

God, you’re so relieved! And so HAPPY!!! You kiss yourself silly, or she kisses you silly. You hope you’ll feel this silly whenever you kiss her. It’s a really nice feeling, so you keep doing it over and over until the buzzer goes off for your third trial. You yelp and she scrambles off you just before you bolt across the lab, yanking on a fresh set of gloves as you go, and throw open your notebook. You scribble down measurements, hardly even looking at the figures.

By the time you look up, Kanaya’s gone back to looking over her paper. She looks around again as you snap your notebook shut and you beam at her. “So, lunch tomorrow?”

She blows you a kiss, and your face is suddenly way too warm again; she's just _so cute_ when she blushes. “It’s a date.”


End file.
